So, I have a quandary about your religious ways.
I reckon it's probably not an easy one to tell the truth about and I'm unsure if you'll be able to honestly answer, even though it's just a hypothetical ponder.
Anyway here goes, I'd really like to know how you would react if the following paradigm played out...
On your pillow when you wake tomorrow is neatly folded piece of obviously ancient but beautifully pressed parchment with your name magnificently inscribed in actual gold upon it. It is a note from Yahweh, God, Allah or (insert your chosen deity here) and you know it's from your one and only "big-chief mighty wishes" because everyone else in the world got one too and they ALL say the same thing.
Dear (insert your own name.)
After a great and careful consideration of the terms of my contract, I have determined that eternal paradise is no longer on the menu for the great majority of humanity. I have the ones I want; I like Leonardo, Einstein, Socrates. I've had some great laughs with Elvis, George Carlin and Mark Twain's a hoot!
Yeah, I know, they should all have gone to hell but if I hadn't rescued them, I'd be stuck with all those mind-numbingly boring sycophants! I tell ya, sometimes it's like heaven's had a zombie apocalypse but enough of my woes, and back to yours, lol.
Heaven's off the ticket for almost everyone; let's say, if your not as spectacular as Old Jo', that's J.S. Bach to you, then you're furnace fodder.
Sorry about that and all but hey, what ya gonna do; I'm the big boss and it's been my shindig since I created day one. I mean, none of you puny humans can prove you're not merely a figment of my imagination, anyway!
So, where was I?
Oh yes, keep up with the commandments because you really invented most of them yourselves anyway.
Good luck, and Peace-out,
Your ever 'loving'
Super-special, Super-daddy
(or whatever it is all you arse kissers are calling me now).
To be precise, if your god removed the promise of a pair of wings and an eternal lease on a comfy cloud with a to-die-for view, would you still follow and spread the 'good' word?
Now, don't give me any nonsense about "God wouldn't change the rules", we all know your god's first rule change wrath was global genocide via flood! And then his second change of heart was a complete rule rewrite courtesy of the Roman Catholic Church. They're his rules after all. And, when it comes down to it, your god's reputation is ALL POWERFUL (Omnipotent) so, if you are of the opinion he can't change the rules then you are suggesting that that's something outside your god's power, which denies his omnipotence! You can't have it both ways!
For me, as an atheist, it's a moot point; my conscience is built from empathy and my prize, therefore, is the smile of my fellow human (awww, yeah I know, sickening but it about covers it) but for you, the non-freethinker, if you would choose the same 'path' and continue to obey the previously, 'divinely enshrined' rules then isn't that evidence that you, as I and millions of other freethinkers across the world, are entirely capable of being good without god?
Further though, if you decided you would not continue with the dictates of whichever brand of authoritarian manifesto to which you are enthralled, then surely, must you not conclude that you are ONLY being 'good' because of your scripture's delicious looking carrot and whippy-whippy stick?
Now, to me, that's not 'a good conscience' but the valueless obedience a slave would employ as a survival technique.
So, come on, I'd really like to know, would you follow the path without the prize?
And as an extra final spin on the ponder...
If, in answering the question above, you would choose to 'be good', I'd ask you the same question you've been asking atheists for decades... "what reason would you have to be good without god?"
PEACE
Crispy
Crispy
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The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!
